As sophomore Ella Miller left her first Natural Helpers meeting, she said she was satisfied because she appreciates everything Natural Helpers does.

“I just started. The training was my first involvement in Natural Helpers,” Miller said. “I really loved it because I just love what Natural Helpers does, and I’ve just loved the idea behind the group. And so it was really cool to finally be a part of it and see what they do.”

According to senior co-president Jack Ostrovsky, the session lasted the whole school day, on Oct. 26.

Natural Helpers adviser Andrew Carlson said the meeting’s goal was to unite the group, while improving their skills.

“Number one (was) so we can have some team building,” Carlson said. “We also met to go over a few techniques on how to be an active listener and how to do some mindful inquiry when meeting with someone. Just to get a little bit of practice of being able to, what we call, be a sponge for someone that might need to get something off their chest.”

Carlson said the training was a success, providing a pleasant get-together for the club.

“Overall I think it was an effective day,” Carlson said. “The group members had a lot of fun. We laughed, we joked around, we were silly, we did skits and stuff like that.”

Ostrovsky said he is excited to bond with other Natural Helpers throughout the rest of the school year.

“I am looking forward to being better friends with the whole group, building better relationships,” Ostrovsky said.

According to Miller, the Natural Helper’s event taught different techniques to help others.

“I think I learned how to have a better perspective on what is around me, and a better way to communicate with people and how to best help them,” Miller said.

According to Miller, many Natural Helpers attended the meeting to become further educated on speaking with those who seek someone to talk to.

“I think we were all there for essentially the same reason, we all want to be another friendly face for people in the school,” Miller said. “So I think everyone thought it was very positive experience, and that we all learned valuable things.”

Ostrovsky said listening is the main job of a Natural Helper.

“Our role isn’t like to tell people what to do it just to be there to listen,” Ostrovsky said. “One of the key things is confidentiality, it’s not just like a gossip place. You don’t tell people, kind of like a safer place.”

According to Carlson, the training was not obligatory, due to many other academic related events throughout the school day for students.

“It’s not mandatory, we do in our meetings go over some of the skills we learned today so that the students will still be able to get that skill training,” Carlson said. “For example, we have a couple of students that had a lot of tests so they couldn’t make most of it, and academics come first.”

Ostrovsky said he believes the meeting was beneficial and had enjoyable activities.

“I think it went well,” Ostrovsky. “We always had something to do and it was well planned out and I think people were having fun.”